In the years 1934 to 1936 the great depression had begun to wane. During those years my mother told me she and I lived in a tent on the bald prairie during the summer. She said it was the happiest period of her life. She said, "I got up in the morning, swept out the floor of the tent and we picked wild strawberries for breakfast with the farmers cream next door. Then you and I did all the nursery rhymes 'til you could say them by heart." I was two years old in 1936 and my mother and I were following my father those summers. As the depression abated he finally got work again with the railroad as a telegrapher substituting here and there in two week stints throughout the prairie railroad depots. We were like camp followers but she thrived on the change and the bonding with her first-born and the gypsy life style. The four years I had alone with my mother in this fashion, linked by indissoluble bonds not connected with things; house, bed, bicycle, TV, internet, may have left an imprint that differs from today. The stability that is supposed to be supplied by the received wisdom that a home must be provided with all the accoutrements in place before family planning has possibly some sense. However a little love, a lot of attention and bonding face to face with your mother, union of mind and body over nursery rhymes, makes up for any camp following and all the diverting stuff of today.

How much water in potatoes dictates boil, mash, or bake and roast.I grew 5 varieties, 5 hills each to assess, colour ignored.That was a long time ago but potatoes were important to me.I arrived at good conclusions with apt varietal indications based on water content.I don't recall any work on this matter but there probably is.It's not something I care about now but like most things, I knew it once.I like potatoes and can spell it, unlike an unfortunate one who couldn't once.

Potatoes are political: Phytophora was enabled by the Corn Law.Our people peopled Canada because of Phytophora, if they survived.Dependent on something related to Deadly Nightshade for life if they stayed.My father grew potatoes in 1930 to sell and dumped them down the coal chute.No one wanted them in the great depression.Now I am writing about silly experiments and spelling when monumental thingsConcern potatoes! Not the least when the modest proposal, in lieu of the potato, Irish infants were offered for the English appetite for boiling by Swift.

Nevertheless, I can't help thinking that applied politics haven't advanced much from Charles Dickens description of the Circumlocution Office of his mid-nineteenth century , led by Mr. Tite Barnacle, a master of circumlocution. To amplify, speaking in circles led by a barnacle that goes nowhere. Maybe I'm more modern than I thought, just applying Dickens to modern politics. If you have never read Little Dorrit you are in for a treat.